Capilano honey offers to fund lab to sweeten new testing deal

Capilano, the nation's largest honey producer, has changed its tune on a testing method that has shown some of its products were impure, and now wants to fund a lab to carry out the tests in Australia.

Adulterated honey is typically bulked up with sweet substances such as rice or corn syrup and is produced mostly in China.

Producers are reportedly finding ways to get past the C4 sugar test Australian regulators use to weed out impure products, prompting the federal Department of Agriculture to consider adopting the NMR test.

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Capilano initially rejected the German NMR results but has now offered to help fund an NMR testing facility in Australia to help "restore the confidence of consumers" in local honey.

The company's managing director, Ben McKee, wrote to the department on Wednesday saying Capilano wanted to chip in with other industry players and "hopefully" the federal government to establish an "independent facility" to test any honey being sold in Australia.

"This is in recognition that overseas facilities relied upon for recent media reports are failing to give a consistency of results needed to reassure the Australian public," Dr McKee said.

"The aim will be to ensure the database is appropriate for Australian honey and honeys from our region and that the database contains transparency in the honey's authenticity and the expert assessment of determining adulteration."

Dr McKee said Capilano's own C4 and C3 testing regime was "internationally recognised" but the company could see the benefit of a new regime to "continue to restore the confidence of consumers and the Australian honey industry".

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However, former Australian Competition and Consumer Commission chairman Allan Fels said

testing and funding should be independent of industry if it was to be trusted by the public.

“Testing and its funding should be totally at arm's length from the industry," he said.

Professor Fels also said that people unconnected to the honey industry knew it was a target for food fraud globally, and so regulators needed to question what Capilano had done to prevent tainted produce entering its supply chain.

Capilano said it had begun discussions with the University of Sunshine Coast and the government-backed Cooperative Research Centre for Honey Bee Products about opening the facility.

It also said it was re-testing its imported products using the existing C4 and C3 measures.